Accountability at school with no excuses allowed

Assistant school superintendents here are routinely summoned to a 10 a.m. Thursday meeting where they must answer for missing test scores, overdue building repairs and other lapses, which are presented in painful detail on PowerPoint slides. Excuses are not an option.

It is the latest evolution of Compstat, a widely copied management program pioneered by the New York Police Department in 1994. Paterson is one of a half-dozen school districts around the country that have embraced this confrontational approach, known here as SchoolStat, in an effort to improve school performance and overhaul bureaucracies long seen as bloated, wasteful and unresponsive to the public.

SchoolStat borrows the tactics of the Compstat program - regular intense meetings in which police officials famously pick apart crime data and, just as often, their subordinates - to analyze police performance and crime trends and to deploy resources to trouble spots. The school version taps into an ever-expanding universe of data about standardized testing and school operations to establish a system of accountability.

In Maryland, the process has been credited with reducing teacher vacancies and increasing student immunization rates in Baltimore schools. In Montgomery County, Md., it has pushed principals to formulate strategies including encouraging students to take the Preliminary SAT by offering a free pancake breakfast if they attend.

In Jackson, Miss., the state's largest district has used it to increase food sales in high school cafeterias. In Philadelphia, officials say it has helped develop strategies to reduce the number of suspensions, increase attendance and raise standardized test scores.

The Stupski Foundation, which has supported reform efforts in 17 urban school districts around the country, spent $85,000 this year to bring SchoolStat to Paterson, where data is mined during weekly meetings on topics including test scores and building repairs.

Some critics say SchoolStat relies too heavily on easily quantifiable standardized test scores to gauge academic progress, only adding to the pressure on schools that face sanctions under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

"The result is classrooms that are little more than test-coaching factories," said Robert A. Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, an advocacy group that opposes the broad use of standardized testing.

The SchoolStat approach has also alienated some school employees, who say they feel that they are being unfairly attacked, and has put others in embarrassing situations.

"Who wants to sit among colleagues and not know the answer?" said Brenda Patterson, an assistant superintendent, adding that she tries to anticipate what questions will be asked and brings along thick binders of information to keep at her fingertips.

"You may leave there feeling uncomfortable, but you also get a direction," she said.